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Forum:Merge the various Encounter Zones?
The only differences between an Abandoned Keep, an Ancient Temple, a Dungeon, a Fallen Temple, a Monster Lair, a Mysterious Cave, and a Ruins is in the graphic and creature type. That seems like a prime case for a single Lair or Encounter page with a table of differences, and a bunch of redirects. Tower of Wizardry and Node deserve their own pages because they have ongoing effects, but could still point to the common page for how they function as encounter zones. Yramrag (talk) 20:51, January 6, 2014 (UTC) :They are not the same. An Ancient Temple and a Fallen Temple can only yield Life books, a Dungeon, Fallen Temple, and an Ancient Ruins can only yield Death books. A Mysterious Cave and a Monster Lair generate a random color. In particular, if you are playing white and conquer a Fallen Temple with a book special, you'll get a crappy item. Such a shame! You may want to reload until you get a pick. ;) I like Serena (talk) 21:14, January 6, 2014 (UTC) ::Okay, there's also a difference in possible rewards (though you've listed fallen temple as offering both life and death books). That still sounds like a single table, or possibly a second table in the Rewards section. Yramrag (talk) 21:34, January 6, 2014 (UTC) ::: Definitely worth keeping separate pages so that information can be as in-depth as possible, but MX2 and I had at one point discussed the lair/encounter base page in chat. I got ever-so-slightly sidetracked by the item powers after getting started towards the base page (through Treasure), but if you can give me a few days I think this might be the next page I'd like to deal with (unless you're already committed or really want to write it). --Spearman D92-R (talk) 01:25, January 7, 2014 (UTC) :::: Problem with separate pages is that any change you want to make has to be made in multiple places. I guess you could have a really stripped down base page that shows the graphic, the title, and any special rules about creatures and rewards, and then a pointer to all the shared information, but that will reduce them all to one or two paragraphs, possibly with a table or gadget. :::: I guess it could be something like: :::: Possibly also something listing the encounter and treasure budget (how are they linked), though that only matters for the towers and nodes, since all regular lair types follow exactly the same rules. Yramrag (talk) 02:46, January 7, 2014 (UTC) :::Generally, I think this wikia contains way too much duplication. This is a good example. So yeah, I am in favor of merging the encounter zones. I like Serena (talk) 20:15, January 7, 2014 (UTC) :I'll quote Headrock's response to redundancy here, The redundancy is mostly intentional. I aim for most pages to be readable without having to read any other pages. Also, since I'm constructing this bit by bit, noting the information on many pages allows me to later combine it all when writing a higher-level article. I like summary charts or pages for consolidated and condensed information which may be one of the reasons I was so impressed by the wiki in the first place. I've seen enough comments and questions about adding this tidbit of info or that piece of info that having in-depth pages...(see Spearman's comment) with a base page that has the consolidated and/or condensed information is a good format for the wiki. :As for creating the need for editing more pages with the same information, that has been a problem, but it still seems to be the best way and it gives even more reason for careful consideration before making the edit in the first place. MysticX2 (talk) 10:04, January 8, 2014 (UTC) :::My issue is that really aren't any distinctions to make. A combined Mysterious Cave and Monster Lair page requires nothing except a note of the two different graphics. A combined Mysterious Cave, Monster Lair, Dungeon, Abandoned Keep page also requires a note about spellbook rewards. Likewise, a combined Ancient Temple and Fallen Temple requires nothing except a note of the two different graphics, and adding Ruins only requires a note about spellbook type and about Rampaging Monster-created Ruins. Yramrag (talk) 17:46, January 8, 2014 (UTC) ::::Heh. I just noticed that the graphic on the overland map for a Mysterious Cave and a Monster Lair are identical. Likewise a Dungeon and a Ruins are identical. I like Serena (talk) 18:43, January 8, 2014 (UTC) On reflection, a lot of the annoyance could be dealt with via Template:Encounter_Zone and Template:Lair. Then at least all the editing would be in a single location. Yramrag (talk) 08:30, February 21, 2014 (UTC) : This seems like a pretty nice solution, but I don't know if it should be repeated. Wikia discourages such heavy-duty templates because they tend to turn the site into a black box. Making normal page edits might be more tedious, but it is simple (kind of the point of a wiki). --Spearman D92-R (talk) 17:02, February 25, 2014 (UTC) ::: As long as it's all in section headers, it's actually not too bad -- clicking on the edit button for a section edits the template. Yramrag (talk) 17:47, February 25, 2014 (UTC) Time to revive this thread. How much of the Encounter Zone article would you like to see on the individual zone pages (I will obviously fix mistakes such as indefinites)? Drake178 (talk) 23:13, November 22, 2017 (UTC) : It's your choice. Maybe avoid adding information regarding version 1.40+ because this could be too much information. -- TumuRulez (talk) 12:05, November 23, 2017 (UTC) ::Atcually, adding the patch modifications is one of the things I would prefer to do. I'd consider that more useful than the repetition of some reference text that feels like its only there to provide word count content. That being said, most of the main article can be largely simplified and referred to, so I think I may be able to do both. Drake178 (talk) 20:38, November 23, 2017 (UTC) :I'm finished with this for now, although I'm still considering an infobox to go around the scouting graphics. For Nodes I created a substitution template instead of going with the existing solution present in Template:Normal Lair and Template:Encounter Zone. This has the advantage of leaving the page easily editable (it's still a regular article in the end), but requires some extra work if all of the articles need to be edited with the same info. However, I would like to think that anyone interested in doing that should be well capable of handling it. I preserved the call to the Encounter Zone template during the substitution, so Nodes will still use it. A description is also provided with Template:Node. Drake178 (talk) 13:57, December 30, 2017 (UTC)